


A Midnight Melody

by KALL



Series: Brothers and Bandages [3]
Category: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018)
Genre: Brotherly Bonding, Brotherly Love, No Turtlecest (TMNT), Soft Leo loving on his bro, no beta we die like clowns, soft Donnie loving on his bro, this is just pure fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:34:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28482459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KALL/pseuds/KALL
Summary: Leonardo wakes up after the cave-in incident and realizes maybe Donnie is not okay.basically a deleted chapter from 'It's Alright, It's Okay' that I decided to brush off and post on its own.
Series: Brothers and Bandages [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2071578
Comments: 8
Kudos: 57





	A Midnight Melody

**Author's Note:**

> Happy New Year yall! my birthday gift to myself is this self-indulgent fic, (although my birthday still is a few days away LOL) 
> 
> I hope 2021 is amazing and brings you all happiness! 
> 
> Happy reading.

Leonardo Felt like torn sheet music. A melody meticulously crafted only to be torn apart vigorously and then taped back together haphazardly. 

Fluttering eyelids wanted to peel open but they remained shut. If Leonardo were capable of forming a coherent thought, he would say it felt like being wrapped up in one of Donnie's weighted blankets. 

The really nice soft one. It's purple and Leonardo is forbidden from even touching it because he got pizza sauce on it ONE time. 

What was that noise? The notes in his brain jittering together in the most terrible way. 

Oh wait was he forming thoughts again? He must be becoming lucid. He nuzzles back into the throws of sleep wanting a few more moments in his bed before he had to get up for breakfast.

He takes a deep relaxing breath inhaling the scent of disinfectant. 

Wait, disinfectant?

Someone, please turn that noise off.

The lair never ONCE smelled like disinfectant unless Leo was tending to another brother's wounds. Something wasn't right. But the weighted blanket fogging his mind threatened to bring him under again if he didn't try to focus. 

God the noise wouldn't stop. What was that? Beeping? Make it stop. He grumbled and found his throat was incredibly dry. Oh God, it actually hurt it was so dry. That was worth waking up for at least. He could get some water from the kitchen and go back to bed to snooze a few more hours. Sleep often alluded the slider and so it was worth its weight in gold. 

He takes a deep breath trying to push off the mental weighted blanket. God, why was this so hard? 

Leonardo was a light sleeper, he often had trouble going to sleep and staying asleep. Insomnia or some other bullshit. So to have so much trouble waking up was concerning. 

It's like pulling concrete off his eyelids but he finally forces them open. He stares at the foreign ceiling dazed and confused. 

_ 'Where the fuck am I?' _ he thinks turning his head slightly with great effort only to have his vision swim.

When it refocused and he stopped seeing double the first thing he was greeted with was an iv drip.

Huh. That must be a new feature in his room he forgot he installed. Same with the heart monitor. Which explains the annoying beeping in His ears. He feels a little sore. Like he just woke up after a good workout or sparring session. Not painful, just a good feeling of soreness. It's mostly located in his shoulder and left leg. 

With great effort, he finds the strength to prod gently at his shoulder. His fingers meet bandages wrapped snugly around his shoulder and it looks like his arm is also in a sling of sorts? 

"Stop that" Leo jumps "your going to pull your stitches out"

Leo turns his head in the opposite direction, wow that should be considered a workout, and he finds Donnie growling at him from across the room. He's sitting in a tiny chair one knee crossed over his leg and phone out tapping away. 

"Stitches?" He croaks out and is reminded of how dry his throat is. A paper cup of water is offered to his lips and he takes a sip of the cool water soothing his parched mouth, the feeling much like rain in Savannah.

"Yes, Leo. Stitches. You have about eight of them in your arm and ten in your leg."

"Who did I piss off to get them?" He jokes with a croak, giving his brother a weak smile and receiving a frown in turn. 

"About two tons of rock and two bat brothers that's who." Donnie snaps pushing the paper cup to his lips again forcing the slider to drink another sip. Leo takes another and swallows feeling the cool water trickle down his throat. 

He wasn't sure what Donnie meant by two tons of rock...rocks. What was he doing before this? He remembers being with his brother's ...and there was a cave.

And there was a cave in... Mikey was in trouble and he…

"Mikey!" He shoots up in bed feeling a twinge of pain in his shoulder. He hisses reaching for it but he pushes past it, his concern at the forefront of his mind. 

"Is everyone okay?" He asked through gritted teeth and he's forced back down with a firm hand to his chest.

"Stay down you idiot. Your stitches, you're going to reopen them." Donnie scolded firmly after he convinced Leo to settle down and he's positive the slider isn’t going to make another attempt at a break for it he speaks again. 

"Everyone is alright. So calm down." He follows up soothing Leonardo's frazzled nerves. Leo lays back down his head swimming for a moment with the movement. 

"You're the one that you should be concerned with right now." Donnie is walking back to his chair but instead of sitting back down he picks it up and moves it closer to Leo's bed, a gesture Leonardo doesn't miss. 

"Where is everyone then?" Leo asked noticing the room he was staying in, which he also noted looked like a hospital room. The only reason he knew he wasn't in a human hospital despite 'this whole situation' was outside the window of his room was not the shining city of New York but the glimmering mystic hidden city. 

"They went to get some food but they should be right back." Donnie's shrugs, getting his phone out again and tapping away. Likely texting April or one of his other brothers to let them know Leo was awake. Despite his disinterested face, There was a tenseness to Donnie's shoulders and an extra force behind every individual tap of Donnie's phone, his hands gripping just a tad too tight. 

"Mmm...and you stayed behind?" Leonardo prods gently his eyes scanning his brother's too tense body. He looks like a piano wire ready to snap if a single key was played incorrectly and Leonardo the composer to this deadly tune. 

"Is that a problem?" Donnie snaps back with a huff slamming his phone down. 

Leo doesn't answer just looking at his brother's hurt face as several emotions flash over it too quickly for him to translate but happening at a frequency that he can at least pick up on. Like frazzled static through a radio, just enough interference that he can't place the tune but enough notes coming through for him to hear the song. 

Leo wordlessly lifts up the bedsheet gently with his good arm, careful not to tug his iv out.

"Come on…"

Donnie's eyebrows furrow but there is a gentleness in his eyes that Leo latches onto and doesn't let go of. 

"You have got to be kidding me, Leo. I'm not getting into bed with you."

"Please, Donnie! It will be just like when we were kids." 

"No."

"Pleaseeeee Dee. I'm cold" it's a last-ditch effort one he didn't expect to work even with his puppy eyes. He's pleasantly surprised to find that Donnie is weak to him right now, jot down  _ 'injured brother in hospital' _ to Donnie's incredibly short list of weaknesses right above beach balls but below no wifi signal, because he's tucking himself into the bed with him quickly without a complaint.

Leonardo pulls the covers up over them feeling his brother's forehead pressed gently against his chest. He wraps a hand gently around Donnie’s soft shell, happy to find he wasn't wearing the bulky battle shell that Leo sometimes forgot was not part of the brother. 

He lets out a sigh sinking back into his bed, gravity seeming to take a heavier toll on him than others right now. He feels drugs working through his system and he thinks he might pass out again, but at least he would have Donnie here with him when he woke up.

Yes, sleep sounded good right now. 

"You almost died."

Ooooor not apparently. 

Leonardo has to physically keep himself from freaking out, needing to address his brother's muffled distress. He's not sure how to address it really, mouth cotton dry and brain no worky with the drugs slowly digging its nails into his skin and dragging him under. He can only humm in response rubbing the back of his brother's shell soothingly. 

"But I didn't." It's a lame thing to state, Donnie scoffing in response and he can feel the breath against his chest where his brother had settled. 

"I didn't," he repeats not sure who he's telling that to at this point.

"I'm alive and you're gonna have to try harder than that to get rid of me." A snort is his only response from Donnie but it sounds wet. Leonardo didn't comment on the sound or the wet feeling against his chest, nor did he speak anymore after that. 

Instead, he just reassured his brother of his very alive status by breathing in. And out. Steadily letting Donnie shove his face as close as he needed to Leo's beating heart. 

He knows that's why Donnie has chosen this particular position, it allowed Donnie to wrap his arms around his brother's shell and place an ear close to his beating heart. Listening to the steady resting heart rate thump forward like a steady melody at midnight.

Eventually, the fingers of the drugs got a good enough hold of his brain, pulling him forward into a midnight sky of sleep, the stars of dreams twinkling brightly to keep him company along with one softshell turtle. 

As he's finally tucked in bed the blanket of darkness swaddling him and his last conscious thought was this. 

_ 'I'm glad I'm here for this.' _

  
  


**\-----------------------**

"But it's not fair!" Whined a Mikey quietly to April who she herself had to agree with but was too busy collecting blackmail to truly meditate on the unfairness. 

"Shhhh keep it down. Don't wake them up" she hushed taking a few more pictures making sure she had an ample supply that would last her free phone repairs through college. 

"But I want to cuddle too! It's my third favorite hobby behind, hugs, and platonic forehead kisses." He listed off these hobbies on his hand while looking at Leonardo and Donatello, who currently were snuggled up like two bugs in a rug. 

Or in this case two turtles on a trolly. Donnie had an arm thrown over his brother's body protectively and Leo was most definitely drooling all over his brother's shoulder. 

April saved the photos she took to a secret folder, ruby red lips curling up into a smirk. She walked away, pictures safely tucked into her pocket, Mikey's whining drowned out by the humming in her throat. 

They could wait to wake them up. 

**END**

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! 
> 
> official part two of 'It's Alright, It's Okay' is still in the works but hopefully these short bite-sized chapters and tieing you over. I'm hoping to have Chapter one up before the end of this month! 
> 
> keep an eye out for it and I'm on Tumblr if yall want to stop by and chat. I also post updates on the stories and little snippets from it.  
> https://www.tumblr.com/blog/its-kall-the-clown


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